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leman

macrumors Core
Oct 14, 2008
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I don't remember, it was a long time ago, but again, it does not matter

But it does matter if we want to establish a proper chronology and the empirical base. So far we have a video where Craig says that Apple is not considering direct booting Windows, and an Ars article where and journalist claims that Craig said that direct booting were only up to Microsoft. These two things are mutually contradictory, with the video of course being more trustworthy. If there is another video corroborating the latter point that kind of changes the entire story.
 

Digitalguy

macrumors 601
Apr 15, 2019
4,643
4,469
But it does matter if we want to establish a proper chronology and the empirical base. So far we have a video where Craig says that Apple is not considering direct booting Windows, and an Ars article where and journalist claims that Craig said that direct booting were only up to Microsoft. These two things are mutually contradictory, with the video of course being more trustworthy. If there is another video corroborating the latter point that kind of changes the entire story.
If I remember correctly the video I (and Arstechica) was referring to came earlier, so Craig kind of backtracked on this video
 

Tagbert

macrumors 603
Jun 22, 2011
6,257
7,281
Seattle
If you are talking about the Arstechnica interview (this one), I don't think there was ever a video? I only know the written interview.
It seems like when Craig was saying that it was up to Microsoft, that he meant that MS could put in the work to build a boot loader and drivers for direct boot of Windows on AS but that Apple did not plan to help them. It does not appear that either company has any interest in doing that.

The best bet for Windows on AS is going to be VMs and whether MS is interested in supporting that or not.
 
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jjcs

Cancelled
Oct 18, 2021
317
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If they did this maybe it would serve to impede people from making proper macOS apps.
Also might encourage people to buy their hardware to use apps that are unlikely to be ported in the first place. Of course, that's a market they don't care about any longer, clearly. They're a home and prosumer lifestyle brand. That works for them.
 

StudioMacs

macrumors 65816
Apr 7, 2022
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They're a home and prosumer lifestyle brand. That works for them.
All the design studios, corporate in-house graphics departments, and editing bays I’ve worked in over the past 20 years would say otherwise.

Everywhere I’ve ever worked it’s either been a 100% Mac shop, or it was an in-house graphics team at a Fortune 500 with the creatives using Macs while the rest of the company was staffed by boring people doing boring jobs on boring Windows machines.
 
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ADGrant

macrumors 68000
Mar 26, 2018
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Also might encourage people to buy their hardware to use apps that are unlikely to be ported in the first place. Of course, that's a market they don't care about any longer, clearly. They're a home and prosumer lifestyle brand. That works for them.
In companies like Facebook, Google and Amazon Macs are widely used in the software development teams. Even in some banks, software developers are using Macs.
 

ADGrant

macrumors 68000
Mar 26, 2018
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The main difficulty in my opinion are the drivers which would need to be written from scratch. And as @mr_roboto points out, Apple is using a nightly customized hardware which does not conveniently map onto existing driver models. For example, they have specialized processors that run a “half” of a C++ driver class, with another matching “half” in the OS kernel, with a custom remote method call procedure connecting the two. Doing thi on nacOS is easy, since the system and the tooling is built with these things in mind. Making it work - abs maintaining it - on a third party system sounds like a major pain. And I am not even talking about the GPU… Apple doesn’t even want to provide Vulkan drivers in macOS and you expect them to write both the Vulkan and DX driver stack for Windows?

Then again, in your later post you say that you think Apple will be willing to provide the drivers. I do not see any grounds for such optimism, but hey, your beliefs are your own. Since it is not a technical or business discussion anymore, we can only respectfully agree to disagree.
Well in order to support Bootcamp, Apple has already provided Windows drivers for the custom ARM64 hardware in T2 Macs.
 

EvilMonk

macrumors 6502
Aug 28, 2006
330
64
Montreal, Canada
Well in order to support Bootcamp, Apple has already provided Windows drivers for the custom ARM64 hardware in T2 Macs.
I know it’s a troll post but you’re not seriously making a comparison of these 2 things… there’s still a Intel processor behind the T2 handling windows and all the x86 code… there’s none with the M1… software emulate the x86 code through Rosetta 2…
 

ADGrant

macrumors 68000
Mar 26, 2018
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I know it’s a troll post but you’re not seriously making a comparison of these 2 things… there’s still a Intel processor behind the T2 handling windows and all the x86 code… there’s none with the M1… software emulate the x86 code through Rosetta 2…
If anyone is trolling, it is not me. And yes I am making a comparison of these 2 things.

Windows on Arm doesn’t runs x86 code, it runs ARM64 code. The T2 doesn’t run x86 code it runs ARM64 code. The x64 code running on a T2 Mac is loaded from the SSD by ARM64 code running on the T2 and a custom x64 windows driver written by Apple. Apple also wrote a windows device driver for the Magic Trackpad. This driver only works with T2 Macs.

If Apple and Microsoft wanted Bootcamp for Apple Silicon Macs it would happen.
 

Xiao_Xi

macrumors 68000
Oct 27, 2021
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Apple should do more to help developers port their applications to macOS. For example, Apple could collaborate with Github, so that Github can provide CI/CD pipelines that run on ARM macOS.
 
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leman

macrumors Core
Oct 14, 2008
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Well in order to support Bootcamp, Apple has already provided Windows drivers for the custom ARM64 hardware in T2 Macs.

Sure, they wrote a basic SSD driver, a driver for their custom WiFi/Bluetooth software and even a minimal driver to show function keys on the Touch Bar. The alternative would be dropping BootCamp with the Touch Bar Macs, and that wouldn't go down too well. Still, none of this changes the fact that Apple Silicon is a whole different matter.

Frankly, the only way how I see a "native-like" Windows working is Apple implementing a bare-metal-like hypervisor that emulates a standard ARM system. The you could "boot" Windows on top of this thing. That's probably the path of the least resistance given the fact that Apple already implemented the basic functionality.

Apple should do more to help developers port their applications to macOS. For example, Apple could collaborate with Github, so that Github can provide CI/CD pipelines that run on ARM macOS.

That I fully agree with. Would be such a great PR move from their side.
 

ADGrant

macrumors 68000
Mar 26, 2018
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Apple should do more to help developers port their applications to macOS. For example, Apple could collaborate with Github, so that Github can provide CI/CD pipelines that run on ARM macOS.
Apple is offering its own CI/CD product. Also, even on Intel Macs, you can build ARM64 MacOS code and it has been possible to build IOS ARM code since the first iOS SDK was released.
 
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leman

macrumors Core
Oct 14, 2008
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Apple is offering its own CI/CD product. Also, even on Intel Macs, you can build ARM64 MacOS code and it has been possible to build IOS ARM code since the first iOS SDK was released.

You can build it, but you can't test it. TBH, CI/CD is probably less of a problem than some claim, but it is still helpful.
 

ADGrant

macrumors 68000
Mar 26, 2018
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Sure, they wrote a basic SSD driver, a driver for their custom WiFi/Bluetooth software and even a minimal driver to show function keys on the Touch Bar. The alternative would be dropping BootCamp with the Touch Bar Macs, and that wouldn't go down too well. Still, none of this changes the fact that Apple Silicon is a whole different matter.

Frankly, the only way how I see a "native-like" Windows working is Apple implementing a bare-metal-like hypervisor that emulates a standard ARM system. The you could "boot" Windows on top of this thing. That's probably the path of the least resistance given the fact that Apple already implemented the basic functionality.
I don’t think there is such a thing as a standard ARM system and Touchbar Macs weren’t the only Intel Macs with T2s. Obviously, Windows for ARM already boots in a hypervisor so yes that would work but it wouldn’t be bootcamp.

On the T2 Macs, Apple had to hack the Windows boot process to get it to work and Linux is still not bootable from the internal SSD. However, if someone can boot Linux from the internal drive on a M1 Mac, it should be possible to do the same on a T2.
 

ADGrant

macrumors 68000
Mar 26, 2018
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You can build it, but you can't test it. TBH, CI/CD is probably less of a problem than some claim, but it is still helpful.
That is true but I doubt the migration of Mac apps to ARM is being held up by an inability to run unit test on ARM. I suspect many of these apps don’t even have a decent set of unit tests.
 

leman

macrumors Core
Oct 14, 2008
19,521
19,677
That is true but I doubt the migration of Mac apps to ARM is being held up by an inability to run unit test on ARM. I suspect many of these apps don’t even have a decent set of unit tests.

If I understand it correctly, this is mostly a problem for some open-source projects where contributors don't have access to an AS Mac and must rely on manual testing done by other devs. Doesn't make the best workflow...
 
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Xiao_Xi

macrumors 68000
Oct 27, 2021
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Apple has two options: (1) help users run Windows applications on VMs/ Bootcamp or (2) help developers port their applications to macOS. MacOS users will have a better experience in the long run if Apple chooses the second option.

Apple should reduce any barriers developers may have to porting their applications. Thus, they should focus on making it easier and cheaper for developers to access macOS.

Apple is offering its own CI/CD product.
How can developers access that CI/CD service? How much is it? If Apple hardware is needed for it, Apple is not helping developers to port their apps, it is selling them hardware.
 

leman

macrumors Core
Oct 14, 2008
19,521
19,677
Apple has two options: (1) help users run Windows applications on VMs/ Bootcamp or (2) help developers port their applications to macOS. MacOS users will have a better experience in the long run if Apple chooses the second option.

These options are not mutually exclusive and Apple is kind of pursuing both. They did implement virtualisation technology that hides the peculiarities of Apple Silicon and allows the user to virtualise an OS that expect a "standard ARM" system.
 

Xiao_Xi

macrumors 68000
Oct 27, 2021
1,628
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These options are not mutually exclusive and Apple is kind of pursuing both.
If Apple were committed to helping developers port their apps, it would change its licensing of macOS to cloud service providers today. The requirement to rent macOS for a minimum of 24 hours limits too much the usefulness of macOS online.
 

Tagbert

macrumors 603
Jun 22, 2011
6,257
7,281
Seattle
All the design studios, corporate in-house graphics departments, and editing bays I’ve worked in over the past 20 years would say otherwise.

Everywhere I’ve ever worked it’s either been a 100% Mac shop, or it was an in-house graphics team at a Fortune 500 with the creatives using Macs while the rest of the company was staffed by boring people doing boring jobs on boring Windows machines.
In our company which has 10’s of thousands of office workers, I seems like more than 1/3 are using Macs. Some are devs, others are in various other office roles.
 
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